Aston Martin caught the eye during Formula 1 preseason testing in Bahrain amid widespread expectations that the team could lead the midfield group and hone in on F1’s front-runners.

Come the end of Friday practice in Bahrain, location for Sunday’s season-opening race, Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin instead actually sat atop the timesheets.

Alonso’s best time of 1 minute, 30.907 seconds put him 0.169 clear of reigning world champion Max Verstappen during a phase of the second practice session—representative due to evening conditions comparable to qualifying and the race—when drivers carry out qualifying simulations.

Reinforcing Aston Martin’s pace was the presence of Lance Stroll, in sixth place overall, despite missing pre-season testing due to a wrist injury.

Is Aston Martin for Real?

Alonso, the most experienced Formula 1 driver in history, was fastest of all during the window in which drivers bolted on the qualifying-spec Soft tires and went for a hot lap.

What’s more encouraging is that during the later stages of the one-hour session, when drivers carry out longer runs to simulate race pace, Alonso was encouragingly close to Verstappen.

“It feels good to drive,” said Alonso. “I would lie if I would say it is not feeling good, but everything is relative to what the other teams are doing and you can feel very good on one car and maybe there are three or four cars faster than you and it doesn’t feel that good anymore. So let’s see where we are.”

Alonso nonetheless downplayed the suggestion that he would be disappointed if he failed to convert his Friday pace into Saturday.

Alonso has not taken a pole position since his time with Ferrari in 2012.

“I’m not thinking that high,” said Alonso. “Actually, I don’t know exactly what position will be a good one for us. After testing we were thinking to be in Q3 with both cars and score as many points as possible in these first couple of races and not make mistakes.”

Stroll labelled the AMR23’s pace as “incredible” and exclaimed that “it’s looking amazing – and it’s feeling great in the car too”, opting for a different tone to Alonso’s calmer aura. He also moved to dismiss concerns over his wrist injury, after being seen massaging his hand during FP2, emphasizing it was precautionary.

Aston Martin’s rivals were certainly taking note of the performance.

“Yeah, quick,” said Verstappen on Aston Martin. “But you could see that in testing that they were very competitive. They had a great day.”

Verstappen’s Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez said “we knew from testing already, they were going to be very strong, they were going to be very competitive. No surprises to be honest. I think it just confirms how strong they are.”

What About Red Bull?

In spite of the pace displayed by Alonso and Aston Martin on Friday it is the current champions that remain the favorites for many in the paddock – with several expecting Red Bull to hold a sizeable performance advantage, at least in the race.

Verstappen was Alonso’s closest challenger while team-mate Perez was just a couple of thousandths of a second behind in third spot.

That was despite neither driver being particularly happy with the RB19 compared to how it performed during pre-season testing.

Verstappen labelled FP1 as “really bad” and couldn’t find a balance while at the start of FP2 it “was a bit difficult”, before the situation improved at the session developed.

“I think if I feel happy in the car again and I can push like I want to push with the car on one lap, then for sure we are very fast,” said Verstappen. “But it’s also making sure the car doesn’t fall out of the window for the long run.

Perez also had a far-from-simple Friday in the sister Red Bull.

“We’ve got some work to do over one lap, which will automatically put us in better shape for the long run,” said Perez. “I think we explored the car a bit for the today. We generally have a good idea on which direction to go for tomorrow. I was having some issues. I was playing around through my long run sim with it quite a bit, so it’s something we will sort out.”

Mercedes Off the Pace

Mercedes left pre-season testing pessimistic over its prospects of competing at the sharp end of the grid.

That attitude was conveyed in the lap times on Friday as Lewis Hamilton wound up eighth while George Russell was further back in 13th spot.

When asked about what Hamilton and Mercedes discovered on Friday the seven-time champion paused, before answering: “I mean we found out we’re a long way off – we kind of knew that a little bit in the test, but it’s a big gap.”

“I’m trying everything we can out there, it is what it is, we just have to work at it.”

Hamilton added that “on the long run we’re quite close to Ferrari, it looks like Aston [Martin] is second, then we’re between third or fourth.

“So we’re kind of where we are last year or a little bit further behind. It’s difficult for everybody, and not where anyone at the team wants to be, or where everyone at the team deserves to be because everyone works so hard and really is so courageous and thoughtful in their process but we’re just on the wrong track.

“We’ve got to continue to graft a way and find a way to get ourselves on the right track, but we’re a long way off the guys in front.”

Intriguingly, Hamilton ended his media session by suggesting “I believe we can close the gap at some stage, yes, but… I think it’s quite hard with the concept we have,” indicating a lack of trust with the W14’s aerodynamic philosophy and its striking sidepod design.

Russell conceded that Mercedes has to “find more downforce, find more lap time” and while stressing it’s still early days “clearly we want to be higher up the time sheets than we are.”

Mixed Bag for Ferrari

Ferrari had a curiously subdued day for a team that harbors title ambitions and which left Bahrain 12 months ago with a 1-2 result in its pocket.

Charles Leclerc was fourth overall while Carlos Sainz, who had a wild spin through Turn 9 in the daytime FP1 session, finished only 14th.

“I don’t think we have the performance maybe for pole but we can be in the mix,” said Leclerc.

“Whenever we have races that are a bit more difficult we should be here and try to take every opportunity so that’s what we’ll try and do this weekend.”

Leclerc agreed that the long run is “where we have most work to do, but it’s very difficult to know what the others are running. We know there’s a bit of margin but we need to wait and see for Sunday. There’s still things to improve.”

Sainz outlined that after his FP1 spin he “lost a bit of track time, rhythm, and probably paid the price in FP2.”

“Still the car doesn’t feel how it did during testing, so we’re looking into what it could be. I’m struggling a bit more with the balance and it’s a bit more out of place compared to where it was but we’re having a good look at it and expect to put it back together for tomorrow.”

Welcome Back, Hulk

Nico Hülkenberg was an eye-catching fifth for Haas during the short runs on his full-time return to Formula 1 after a three-year absence.

“One lap pace is fine and it’s fun and it’s nice but if this is the thing on Sunday that’s where the gold is, where it matters, and that’s where we have homework and need to find pace,” said Hülkenberg.

Kevin Magnussen was down in 16th place after a scruffy hot lap with a more experimental set-up as Haas applied some of the feedback from testing.

“We’ve been testing a bit today, tried some good things, some bad things, we’ll put it together tomorrow,” said the Dane.

Haas has traditionally been strong in Bahrain so it should be firmly in the midfield fight this weekend.

What about the rest?

• Alpine has hopes of finishing in a stronger fourth than in 2022 and while Aston Martin stole the show Alpine had a quietly encouraging day in its heavily upgraded pink-liveried A523. Pierre Gasly was the lead Alpine driver in seventh.

• McLaren had Lando Norris in ninth spot and he outlined the MCL60 being “the best it has felt all year” and “definitely moved in the right direction,” and expects the team to be in the thick of the tight midfield battle.

• Alfa Romeo had Zhou Guanyu rounding out the top 10, with Valtteri Bottas 12th, with the squad expected to be joining McLaren in that fight.

• AlphaTauri and Williams brought up the rear, solidifying the suspicion that the two teams are likely to be scrapping to avoid the wooden spoon.

• American Logan Sargeant of Williams was last of the 20 drivers overall, though was just 1.8 second off Alonso’s benchmark, raising preseason hopes that no team will be horrendously adrift of the pack in 2023. Very fine margins could split the Q3 tail-enders from the Q1 stragglers at some Grands Prix.